This week in ELO has brought a game balance problem to my attention. Now that Copy Bonus cards are becoming a little bit more prominent, and many clans are getting powerful 8 power cards, SoB clans are starting to feel outdated. In UR's delicate ecosystem, SoB clans were usually a balancing force. They messed up games for clans that have incredibly good synergy between bonus and ability. A good deck had to be able to defend against both SoA and SoB without losing the ability to win rounds.

A good example of how damaging underpowered SoB clans are to the game is Jungo. Askai is currently unbanned, and the vast majority of ELO players are either running him or have tried to run him this week. If SoB clans weren't weak in the current metagame, running Jungo would pose a risk of a low damage draw, even with Askai. Many Jungo staples have mediocre damage, if they are deprived of their bonus. With SoB clans too weak to threaten Jungo, they are becoming overused. The same can be said of All Stars... Deprived of their incredible round-winning bonus, they struggle to secure the rounds they need. However with Saki's arrival, and Robb Cr unbanned, All Starspack an even bigger round winning punch and gain the ability to wall vs SoB clans.

Has anyone else noticed this? I think Lizbeth is a step in the right direction, but her price puts her out of reach of many players...

Wow... what a discussion but i have to disagree with you that sob clans are underpowered

as many ppl have said this game is kinda rock paper scissors, sob are only meant to counter some clans with awesome bonuses (such as Uppers, Rescue, Bangers and to some extent All Stars).

wow and havnt you realized the strengths of SOB clans are not their stats its their ABILITIES look at kenny, Azel and most importantly Cutey. Cutey is so underrated its not even funny.... 6/8 for 3 star is INSANE. usually in most cases, winning two rounds with 2 Nightmare characters is sufficient to win the game.

on the other hand, with Piranas, the case is different because it is a PILLZ MANIPULATION based clan. That said, they usually need to win 3 rounds to win the game.

Wow and OBVIOUSLY Jungo counters sob clans hardcore.... Jungo has a completely CRAP bonus ok sorry +2 life is just horrible compared to attack/power manipulation. And in the case that you said drawing hands with low damage? I am sorry but thats an irrelevant point because not only is the probability of drawing a 'bad' hand against sob clans fairly low, but also Pegh and Jean kick complete butt they stop opponents damage mostly. wt Jungo has to worry about is SOA clans.... they have such awesome abilities that make up for their crap bonus that SOA is an imminent threat.

and honestly Saki and Beeboy are kinda overpowered and they should be seeing a LOT of bans or even permaban. Saki should never have came up or should have 3 damage

Heh, as much as I agree with the rock/paper/scissors argument, I think that the best decks combine two approaches to winning -- or, to put it another way, the best decks are rock + scissors or paper + rock, etc. With a healthy meta game, it should be possible to build a deck that has a slight advantage against 75% of draws, assuming you use two clans that work well together, and have enough synergy that drawing a 3-1 hand doesn't automatically kill you.

Nightmare and Piranas only come out on ban-heavy weeks like this one. The reality is that a huge amount of "power cards" needs to be temp-banned for NM and Piranas to thrive. What further proof does anyone need that they're underpowered? Lizbeth alone is not enough to save Piranas. Many of their staples deal 4 damage -- and having to win 3 rounds with Piranas isn't terribly easy. I think it's obvious that these clans need a couple of cards that cover at least some of their weak spots.

Let's put things in perspective.

Todd hits as hard or harder than most of Piranas' BEST 4* and under staples. You guys know who Todd is, right?

Nightmare's heavy hitters average out to 6.5 power. To reliably win rounds with NM, you hit the +pill button a lot, close your eyes, and PRAY.

Feel free to make your own judgments, a good player can win with anything... But you can't argue with the facts. 8 power, ability SoB, and CoB are becoming much more common. That makes SoB clans weak in the current meta.

Sorry whats with your over obsessiveness with Lizbeth? its a good card but its WAY too unsolid. ok... since you are finding problems with big hitters with Piranas why not try Bloodh? my fav 5 star. and a lot more solid.

Nightmare has low power, its true. But they make it up with attack manipulation and other sexy abilities. Also, their weakness to SoA.... its not valid. I am sorry but abilitiy soa is a LOT more rare than bonus soa. HEnce, their SOB cancels out a majority of those already. also, Nightmare is high risk high reward. I admit, its not that easy to win rounds with Nightmare, but once you hit, you hit HARD.

And the cards with good power, SoB/CoB must surely have a very weak damage (Beeboy is 5* and also banned quite a bit) and on your point of Todd... you are only assuming that the poison seeps through all 3 rounds and it is played on the first round... and once again as i said Piranas is a PILLZ MANIPULATION clan that aims to win THREE rounds, not 2.

There are many clans that win 3 rounds much better than Piranas, without the need to pill exceedingly high in hopes that pill manipulation will save you. There are also many clans that hit as hard as many Nightmare staples... Nightmare still has a life gap advantage over many clans, but it's no longer big enough to justify the lack of round-winning potential.

All I'm saying is that SoB clans are a bit behind the times, and I hope there's more where Lizbeth came from (who is good, by the way, exactly for the same reason that you give for Nightmare not being weak to ability SoA.)

I skimmed through this and I'm getting the impression some people think that SoB clans are a tad weak or under-supported. I'd have to disagree, in the right hands any clan can be used well, after all playing mono forever isn't going to happen. Every now and then a smart player is going to throw them into a half deck in response to the current meta. This game isn't all about playing one clan all the time. So again, no clan is bad, they just have their uses depending on the meta.

It depends on your deck and what you draw . I mean if you play a 5 5 5 2 2 2 2 2 Your obviously not going to get a good hand half the time!
You can just play the Normal Nightmare half which is still amazing ..AzelPanEdwinArtus (Mawpin , Phylis maybe) Also Glorg isn't banned either so try him out.

When I first started playing, they were still doing Clan Bans for ELO. The most played clan was banned, GHEIST and Rescue were usually the two in heavy rotation. I started playing with the Piranas, with their pill manipulation, and clan bonus it did well. Even then ability SoB, and SoA caused them problems, you just realized they were on the board, and altered your play a little. Beeboy, Saki, Futoshi, Annuqa, Gerald, Anakrohm, and Lorna are nothing but ability SoB when facing a SoB clan, with Klawz as a full stop.

Saki, and Beeboy (since those are the two that you keep mentioning, although a vengeful Annuqa becomes a 3* beast), are powerful when used against other clans, but not so much against SoA, or SoB clans. This is because all they get against SoA or SoB is their clan's bonus. When they square off against the other clans they can get over balanced, because they get their bonus, as well as their opponents.

COB isn't the fall of the SoB clans. I think that the power creep is a factor, but they have been giving the SoB's some solid cards to try and fill the gaps. Piranas got a nice DR, but Ulrich is currently staff banned in ELO, but with Lizbeth's recent release, I do not expect to see another Piranas for another couple of releases.

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